The present invention relates to an image communication apparatus for transmission and/or reception of image data.
A transfer type printer using an electrophotographic technology, such as a laser beam printer, liquid crystal shutter array printer, or LED printer has excellent properties in regard of speed and resolution. Such a printer has been proposed for use with a facsimile apparatus.
In a transfer type printer, a toner image on a photosensitive body or an insulator is transferred to a recording paper while the photosensitive body or the insulator contacts the recording paper. After transfer, a so-called separation process is needed to separate the recording paper from the photosensitive body or the insulator.
If a separation belt is used in the separation process, non-recording areas have to be provided at opposite lateral end portions of the recording paper, on the order of several millimeters in size.
Such a printer therefore cannot record the entire area of a received image and the lateral end portions of the image are omitted. As shown in FIG. 10A an A4 size original document has a width of 210 mm, while the effective recording area of a laser beam printer is 198 mm in the main scan direction. Therefore, non-recording areas exist, for example, a 4 mm width at the left side and an 8 mm width at the right side.
A multi-copy function is one of various functions of a facsimile apparatus. With the multi-copy function, an image read from an original document can be printed out two or more times.
Particularly, an original document is read with a reader, and readout image information is sequentially stored in a page memory within an image memory. After the entire image information is stored in the page memory, the image information is then read from the page memory to be printed with a printer. At this time, the present number of papers is decremented by 1. After completion of a first print, the above operations wherein image information is read from the page memory and printed, are repeated, and the preset number of papers is sequentially decremented by 1. The multi-copy operation terminates when the preset number of papers becomes 0.
There is a tendency for facsimile apparatus to be provided with a memory of large capacity, and consequently the number of pages of a page memory becomes large. Thus, in a multi-copy operation, the number of pages of the page memory is very large nowadays.
Under such conditions, there arises however a problem that the time required for a multi-copy operation becomes long in proportion with the capacity of the page memory.
Effective use of a memory is generally achieved by use of compression-coded data. However, regardless of a same size original document, the amount of memory used for coded data varies depending on the amount of image information. Therefore, in some cases, a memory becomes insufficient for storing even a one-page image, and a copy thereof cannot be obtained.
During a copy mode operation, first an original document is read and the read-out image information is temporarily stored in an image memory. Thereafter, the image information is read from the image memory to be printed with the printer. If a plurality of resolution modes are provided in the facsimile apparatus, a desired resolution mode is selected to read the original document. For example, in the case of a facsimile apparatus having a standard mode and a fine mode, an original document is read in a designated one of the two modes, and the image is printed in the same mode used for reading.
However, in the copy mode of the conventional facsimile apparatus, although the cost of copying is the same irrespective of the resolution mode, only a low quality print is obtained in a low resolution mode.
There is another copy mode, called a memory copy mode, which makes a copy some time after the image data is stored in a memory. Various conditions are set at the time when the image data is stored in the memory. The conditions include resolution, presence or absence of half tone, destination, page number and so on.
The number of conditions is large and the condition setting is rather complicated. Thus, it may be difficult to remember the conditions later with certainty.
A facsimile apparatus has generally an automatic reception mode as well as a manual reception mode. The automatic reception mode is convenient since it performs an automatic reception while the operator is out during night or is busy at other work.
In the automatic reception mode which starts a reception operation upon calling from a line, if the apparatus at the reception side is not prepared for a reception, for example, due to no printing paper, then an error indication signal is sent to the calling station. In this case, there arises some problems that the calling side cannot know the reason of the error while the called party does not become aware of no paper.